American celebrities who actually speak more than one language

Sandra Bullock is supposedly fluent in German as her mother was from Germany.

Well it was long past due that we had another thread for the fussy French language queens.

Gwyneth Paltrow speaks French, Spanish and GOOP.

Will Smith.

A lot of actors go to spanish tv show El hormiguero which is one of the few shows with big audiences you can promote your film, but a lot of them have a hard time because the show goes beyond the interview and a lot of them have a problem to follow the dynamics.

That 's not Smith's case, he loves going there, he always have a good time (and he carry good ratings everytime) and he does the whole interview in spanish.

Gwyneth spend some time in Talavera de la Reina, and she speaks spanish really well

Rebecca De Mornay speaks fluent German as she spent much of her childhood in Austria thanks to her kooky mother.

Isn’t Candice Bergen fluent in French?

Actually!

Timotay of course!

What wrong with Bradey Cooper's French? I wish I could speak it as well.

Viggo M speaks a few languages.

Aren’t there a number of American celebrities, especially those of Hispanic heritage, who speak Spanish?

Viggo lived a good part of his childhood on argentina and venzuela and he is married with an spnanish actress so he obviously spenaks spanish

R10: There are some cases where they expoit that heritage and even sing in spanish but then they can't say a complete sentence in spanish in real life.

I think embracing the hispanic heritage is something more common now than it was in the past

Television’s Sofia Vergara speaks Spanish, I’ve heard.

Oh that doesn’t fit the theme of this thread?

OP, did you have a scarf tied around your neck as you wrote this?

Sofia Vergara is from Colombia, of course she speaks spanish, in fact it's her fist language

Her fist language?

Go to :35 for Mila Kunis

Jane Fonda

If I recall, didn’t Jodie Foster study at the Sorbonne or go to a Lycee here in the US? And Molly Ringwald retired to Paris for awhile and has been translating French literary works.

And exactly why doesn't Bradley Cooper and his "Français" count?

Angelina Jolie Chris Evans Justin Theroux Natalie Portman Mark Ruffalo

I speaks the seven language.

All equal good.

Natalie is Israeli, doesn’t that disqualify her from OPs qualifications of American Celebs?

Colin Firth speaks Italian.

He can speak to me in Pig Latin and I would hang on every word.

Google it. there are a lot of lists

Bradley Cooper counts

Fluency and native speaker are often confused. In my mind, people like Sandra Bullock or Mila Kunis who were brought up with the language by a native and lived a significant portion of their childhood in that country are more native speakers. This is a childhood experience rather than based on study.

Fluency in my mind implies actual study and gets you along in most conversation, but you're still far from perfect. Then there are people who have studied quite a bit - but not really enough to be considered fluent. That's where many of the above stars fall in.

There's proficiency and there's fluency.

Barbara Billingsley

Mariska Hargitay speaks Hungarian and German, and claims to also speak Italian and French.

Thanks R26 - yes, proficiency. Native, fluent and proficient - three very different levels.

I think Michael Sera speaks Italian.

I speak French better than a native. Just listen.

Lily-Rose Depp

Remember when George W Bush pretended to speak Spanish. Not pretty.

Mayor Pete.

R22 Not an American.

France natives confirmed Bradly Cooper’s french is very good and natural, its impressive that he only learned it for 6 months. Jodi’s France is more proper and textbook and not current.

Holt McCallany from Mindhunter gave an interview in French on French TV.

And what of Molly’s “France” R36?

R: Yes, the first. I'm sure you know America is a continent (even in the USA call it the americas the rest of the world don't do the same) and in most countries people don't talk english, and just happen that she is from one of those countries

Sebastian Stan( Romanian and English)

Paul Wesley(Polish and English)

Gwyneth Paltrow speaks perfect Spanish (the Spain accent).

Steven Seagal speaks perfect Kansai dialect of Japanese.

I speak English and the language of LOVE.

All presidential candidates should speak at least one foreign language well. I think the US is the only country in the world where people often look down on that instead of applauding it.

In an episode of SVU Mariska had one line in Italian and no, she doesn't speak Italian.

[quote] Bradley Cooper counts

No. Bradley Cooper is a CUNT.

What about TEE-MOH-TAY SHAH-LAH-MAY?

Fluent in French.

Chalamet's French is appalling for someone whose father is a French native.

I would have to agree, R48.

He barely made it through that interview at R47.

Struggling to think of the words he wanted to say, and peppering English throughout the conversation.

I honestly thought he was fluent, but I guess not.

Jodie Foster is far superior to Timo.

Je m'en fiche. C'est un beau gosse.

Jodie Foster studiously learned perfect French. It's very rare for French and English speaking people to lose their accents in the other language. One has to make a sincere, academic effort to do so. Chalamet speaks pick-up French, like immigrants learn. He puts very good effort into moving his mouth and pronunciation, and it's charming. It's not lazy.

I'm shocked at Seagal

JGL.

Timo has the pronunciation down pat, but he really has to improve his vocabulary.

I give him credit, though, for a 23/24 year old American actor to be able to sit through an interview in French. Not bad.

Here you go, OP. Some are Americans

I love that Timo doesn't pretend to be fluent.

He always checks with the interviewer, to see that he's expressing his thoughts correctly.

I love that he's very humble about his ability.

Ginger Rogers amazed audiences

Leo Dicaprio speaks German, from his German mother.

Doesn't Mira Sorvino have a degree in Cantonese Chinese?

Jodie seems like a natural...

Lisa Kudrow (French)

Jayne Meadows spoke fluent Chinese, she was born and grew up there.

[quote]I speaks the seven language. All equal good. —Melania Trump

Melania, dear, knowing how to say "Hello, handsome man. Do you wish a date?" and "Leave the money on the dresser" in seven languages does not make you multilingual.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt also speaks French.

Yes r64, I just learnt that from r53.

It's hard as shit to learn a new language. It helps to have a lot of confidence and an ability to infer specific meanings. Simply knowing how to translate something literally will only get you so far. You have to be able to absorb all the grammar and idioms, and unique slang in order to pass off as a native. You also have to exercise your mouth to produce unfamiliar sounds. It's still worthwhile to become proficient in other languages but I've given up on achieving perfect fluency.

I've devoted a lot of my time to learning a new language. While I'm still motivated to continue based on all the effort I put on, it has me put me off any desire to learn a totally different language from scratch.

It's quite cute that they're actually doing something constructive with their free time.

R66/r67, I wonder if actors who work with words and are used to speaking the words others give them and assuming other voices, as well, presumably as having greater confidence in "performing" and improvising, find it easier than the rest of us to learn languages.

[quote]It's hard as shit to learn a new language.

I've been told that English is a BITCH of a language to learn. Especially if you don't begin until you're already an adult.

R65 Sorry, it wasn't there when I began reading the thread (posted nearly the same time).

Edward Norton speaks Japanese.

I'm trying to learn French as a 55 year old adult, and it's no fun. I don't have a lot of self discipline now that my Dad (who had a Masters in Linguistics) died 2 years ago. However I can watch Foreign language tv/film with French subtitles and I can understand about 65%-75% of what's going on.

Sandra Bullock speaks German.

r57 Ig-bay eal-day.

[quote] Jodi’s France is more proper and textbook and not current

Jodie lives in France for part of every year (she has an apartment on the Ile St. Louis), so I cannot imagine that is true, since she went to the Lycée Français in LA and also even recorded songs in French as a teenager. I have heard repeatedly she is fully fluent.

[quote] Doesn't Mira Sorvino have a degree in Cantonese Chinese?

Her degree is actually in a concentration called East Asian Studies (from Harvard). But she does speak fluent Cantonese Chinese.

R75 You might find this interesting. Here is a video of a French girl discussing Jodie Foster's French. The long and the short of it is she considers Foster to be bilingual, but for fun goes on to see if she can tell where she's not a native speaker too. She says Foster makes some mistakes the more you listen to her (masculine/feminine mixups) but nothing that's a huge deal. She's very impressed.

Candice Bergen, French.

Donna Summer, German

They are going to have to give up all the noun genders in foreign languages. It is literal violence causing thousands of suicides and murders every year.

Jodie is far more comfortable with French - she never struggles for a word and (what's more impressive) she can convey intelligent ideas. (I'm sure she does get her noun genders wrong - I don't pay any attention to them either when I'm struggling to speak French.)

She definitely makes Bradley Cooper sound like a beginner. His French is high school level at best.

Dakota Johnson speaks fluent Spanish.

That is awesome, r79. I never knew Donna Summer spoke German. She spent a lot of time in Germany working with Giorgio Moroder but she could probably have easily got by just with English, so good for her for making the effort.

She stresses the idea of the idiomatic 'quoi' at the end of a sentence. I realized when studying French a long time ago and which the French woman doesn't seem to know is that this was a British thing as well. I don't think Brits say it anymore but for emphasis and maybe it was just for comic characters in films at the end of declarative statements they would say 'what' just as a kind of verbal punctuation.

Donna Summer was the lead soprano for the Vienna Light Opera before she became famous.

Goop is fluent in Spanish. She visited Spain often when she was younger. I think there was a rumor that she was having an affair with some chef in Spain while she was married.

Patti Labelle speaks French.

Haha op, I love the shade!!!!

Nobody cares about Bradley Cooper, or his pretentious second-year high school French.

He can go straight to hell, the fucking closet case.

That's definitely cool, at R79.

Hey German speakers, how was Donna's German?

Chaka Khan also speaks German. She's had a home in Germany for years.

Fluency in linguistics is the act of speaking a language like a native, so this distinction doesn't exist. Many people who weren't born or raised in a Language can be fluent in that language. There's only a distinction between being fluent with an accent of fluent without it. Unlike popular misconceptions you can be fluent and speak a language without any accent as an adult, you don't need to be raised in it to do it. Recent peer reviewed papers on neurolinguistics show that musical education as a child and having a musical ear (those who can recognize pitches and sounds perfectly) play a much more important role in one's capability to speak without an accent regardless of age as language is basically recognizing sound patterns and pitches and reproducing them.

[quote] imo has the pronunciation down pat, but he really has to improve his vocabulary. I give him credit, though, for a 23/24 year old American actor to be able to sit through an interview in French. Not bad.

He was raised in French so it's natural that he can pick up the sounds perfectly just like Jeniffer Lopez does. Like her he struggles with vocabulary though.

[quote] I wonder if actors who work with words and are used to speaking the words others give them and assuming other voices, as well, presumably as having greater confidence in "performing" and improvising, find it easier than the rest of us to learn languages.

At Juilliard you learn specific techniques to speak foreign language lines. It has a lot to do with sounds and reproducing them. Samira Wiley from Orange is the New Black talked about it when she had to shoot some of her character's flashback as an American raised in Germany.

R92 that stuff about Julliard is fascinating, I'd love to know more about it. I guess she's referring to being trained in the International Phonetic Alphabet maybe?

Based on her use of foreign languages on SVU I have long doubted Mariska Hargitay's clues of fluency in any language aside from English and Hungarian. As the poster above pointed out, her Italian was terrible.

Zazie Beetz zpeakz German

Rosie O'Donnell does Chinese better than most of us

R55

IIRC JGL became an avid Francophile while at Columbia studying French poetry, French history and French literature. His mother was a French major at University of California, Berkeley, and U.C.L.A.

John Malkovich - French

Rofl at R96!!!

I never saw that before.

JGL's French is kind of meh.

[quote]They are going to have to give up all the noun genders in foreign languages. It is literal violence causing thousands of suicides and murders every year.

English is so much more “woke” in being a non-gendered language.

Is Meryl fluent in anything? You would think with all of her accent skills, speaking German in Sophie’s Choice, etc...that she’s probably picked up another language at some point over the years?

[quote] Is Meryl fluent in anything?

She definitely speaks fluent bullshit.

R100

JGL received generally good marks from his native French co-stars and other French speakers for his fluency and accent in film 'The Walk"

Don't know if JGL studied the language before going to Columbia, but really believe he was an adult learner of French. As such his Parisian accent is reasonably good, but could probably benefit from total immersion for a long period.

American celebrities who speak French ranked from 1 to 7

R101, English is the language that pioneered the bullshit of "pronouns". I'm just wondering when the non-Anglophone trannies are going to start arguing that inanimate objects, such as a table or a car, have to take the neuter article, which would be apt considering that the trans ideology is literally to neuter young people.

R90, it's kinda random but cool that Chaka Khan lived in Germany.

[quote]when the non-Anglophone trannies are going to start arguing that inanimate objects, such as a table or a car, have to take the neuter article, which would be apt considering that the trans ideology is literally to neuter young people.

The French are not going to put up with having their language butchered to satisfy the whims of some trannies.

M to F Trannies like to threaten to beat the shit out of anyone who refuses to consider them real women. And the French have never proven themselves to be the bravest of people.

Fred Armisen speaks perfect spanish. Loved his spanish episode from Documentary Now.

R1, she interviews pretty convincingly to my german lingual ears, she’s a very popular actress there on account of this. The “ocean’s 8” film traded on this party trick and she speaks german pretty much completely in a crucial scene

Fred Armisen is half Venezuelan (his mother) so I’m not surprised he speaks Spanish well.

Alexis Bledel is also a native speaker, and iirc her first language was Spanish. Her father is Argentinian and mother grew up in Mexico.

I dated an athlete briefly and she casually mentioned that when she played on teams in [countries redacted because I'm trying to be discreet], she "picked up" the languages, neither of which uses the Roman alphabet. She had not. I speak one of the languages. She knew a smattering of words, and she mangled some standard phrases.

I think celebrities are flattered and encouraged more and they do have great discipline and consequently more confidence. Their training helps them fake expertise more (Keanu/martial arts). No surprise they go on to think they nailed a language even though they haven't. It's weird and kind of adorable.

You can speak fake Italian to me any day, Mariska.

Perhaps r113, but most of the claims here are actually backed up with examples of the celebs speaking the foreign language reasonably well.

I bet Terence Trent D'arby speaks Italian by now. He's lived in Italy for decades.

Gwyneth will be the first to let you know that she speaks Castillian Spanish, as spoken in Spain, and not the common "kitchen Spanish" that most Americans are used to.

I wonder why French is more popular than Portuguese or Arabic with US celebs? It's not much use outside of France or Canada.

French is classy and cultured. Spanish is down-market. That's why companies use English and French on various products that they want to sell as "upscale."

R46 Sebastian Stan is not American, he moved to the states as a teenager.

Tommy Lee Jones is apparently fluent in Spanish, and he is not Hispanic either.

Okay well that was the wrong post I referenced in the last one, but I’m too lazy to go back and find the right one

[quote]I wonder why French is more popular than Portuguese or Arabic with US celebs?

Because they went to the same public schools as the rest of us. Portuguese and Arabic aren't generally taught in US public schools.

Mila Kunis, Sebastian Stan, Morena Baccarin and other celebrities that moved to the US as teens don't count as their first language wasn't English. Others who were raised bilingual by foreign parents are also expected to speak the language. Many Americans are weirdly obsessed with this very natural phenomenon, even in developing nations people are brought up speaking many different languages. There's nothing particularly outstanding about it.

French was also the language to learn if you were any educated person in the 18th century.

R116

You want to get a Spaniard (as in from Spain) angry, call them Puerto Rican, and or imply they speak that language! *LOL*

Similarly Puerto Rican persons believe they speak a far higher level of Spanish than Mexicans.

Argentine Spanish is a whole other ball game.

R117

French has long been the language of culture, sophistication, and sign of "good breeding". This goes back centuries.

Anne Boleyn was sent to the French royal court to learn French and basically as sort of a finishing school. Upon her return everyone remarked on how her carriage and bearing was equal to the highest ladies in France. Of course AB's French language skills were impeccable.

Also going back centuries French was the international language of diplomacy, this explains why passports world over usually are printed in native language and French (just look at your American passport).

Ambassadors spoke their own language and maybe a few others, but French was the "international" one they all spoke, wrote and communicated to each other.

For England/GB and even USA boys were taught Greek and Latin, whilst girls learned French. The latter went on well past 1970's, with even Jackie Bouvier following that well trod path. She studied French in high school and college, and spent a gap year in France.

When you think of chic, French and France come to mind first, and this has been ever since Louis XIV if not before.

I doubt that Leonardo DiCaprio's German is very good. I remember an interview where he said he spoke and understood enough German to order a cup of coffee in a German café - in other words, beginner level. And in an excerpt from a biography I read it was mentioned that his grandparents tried to teach him the language, but it was very difficult for him.

German is probably one of the more difficult European languages to master; especially for young adult or later learners.

Have several friends that moved house to Germany (their husbands were German) from UK and USA; all had a very hard time learning to speak the language. This was to the proficiency required to be allowed employment, but their conversational German wasn't that great either, nor still is for that matter.

German grammar rules alone gave me a headache in college. One semester and was through, swore never again...

Salma Hayek speaks Spanish but her English is barely decipherable.

[quote]French is classy and cultured. Spanish is down-market. That's why companies use English and French on various products that they want to sell as "upscale."

God, you're dumb. The reason they use English and French is so that they can sell them in Canada, where dual-labeling is required.

I disagree about Salma Hayek's current level of English proficiency. To my ears her English is very easy to understand. (I'm an American native speaker of English). Yes, she has a recognizable Mexican Spanish accent but that is normal when you learn another language as an adult.

No r129 it's known in the industry that French is upscale. Dual English/French is used on many beauty products, for example, that are sold only in the US. French gives things "class."

r131: How do you know those "classy" products aren't also sold in Canada, where dual English/French is required by law? Most products sold in the US are also sold in Canada these days. Proof?

God you're tiresome r132. French classes things up, it's been used on products (esp. beauty products) in the US for ages. This is advertising/marketing 101. And that's the end of the discussion.

Only difference between a "French" dry cleaners and anyone else is that they will charge more. Hahaha.

Now French Hand Laundry is another matter; that is something unique and quite good.

That being said yes, there is a difference between giving a strictly English/American product or service a French name, versus directions and other material printed on package in English and French (with possibly Spanish).

Latter has come about mostly thanks to NAFTA and other things where products are sold in all three North American markets (USA, Mexico and Canada) Since the latter includes Quebec, there you are. Far simpler to print all three languages on one packet rather than make separate for each.

OTOH things like L'oreal Plenitude and plenty of other products and services going back decades long have used French for the cachet of chic and sophistication associated with that culture.

There isn't any such thing as "oil of Olay" but the French sounding name has helped sell gallons of the stuff.

Foreign branding has been going on for ages; Au Bon Pain was founded in Boston, Pret a Manger comes from Great Britain, and so it goes.

While were at it Häagen-Dazs means nothing in any European language. It simply is a made up brand name meant to imply "old word" standards.....

Kobe Bryant was fluent in Italian and Spanish

Brando had trouble with English, but his French was pretty good. French BF probably kept him on his toes.

R135, according to speakers of Italian (do any DLers want to weigh in?), Kobe's was very good, which is no surprise, as he spent ages 6 through 13 living in Italy.

His Spanish, however, wasn't even close to fluent. I would describe it as high school level. That's not to say that his efforts to learn weren't admirable; they absolutely were. But it's important to distinguish between fluency and basic proficiency.

Thank you R79 and R90. Donna Summer and Chaka Khan speaking German is pretty neat. I had no idea. Apparently, the musical Hair brought Summer to Munich!

Kirsten Dunst speaks German above a beginning level.

Donna Summer was a consummate artist and person. Just lovely in all aspects. And her German was super fluent. She had moved to Germany in the late 60s , and was married to an Austrian. She acted in German musical theater and, amazingly, was even a member of the Vienna opera company!

No [R129] it's known in the industry that French is upscale. Dual English/French is used on many beauty products, for example, that are sold only in the US. French gives things "class."

Also the reason why English and French are the official languages of the Olympic Games. “Class”.

Antonio Banderas

Brigette Bardot

.the late Gabor sisters

Sophia Loren

R140, the reason why the Olympics are in French and English and the language of the host country is because a Frenchman - Pierre de Coubertin - founded the modern Olympic Games back in the late 19th century.

Maurice Chevalier

R122, Mila Kunis came to the USA when she was 6 or 7, IIRC. She told a story about her first day of school, not knowing any English.

R137, confirming that Kobe's Italian was very good: excellent accent and he knew his way around idiomatic expressions.